The more people use free software, the more it will become cost effective to improve it using government funding.

There can be enormous net savings (zero license fees), which is fantastic for the taxpayer.

Gimp, blender, firefox and obs are all very successful OSS alternatives that come to mind.

Gimp is a classic example of OPs point.

Mozilla really ? Lack of vision and focus driving Firefox into irrelevance. And also started on the back of a commercial product.

Blender started as a commercial software and is being spearheaded by Ton ever since (my very uninformed impression), which again reinforces OPs point.

Yeah, gimp is pretty crap and it is what it is sure. Clearly they work in a world that has more smaller boutiques where replacing Adobe with supporting OSS alternatives isn't a clear winner. Industries that have a ton of engineers are more likely to build their own alternatives, and some of them realize that they can cost share by being OSS.

Gimp is fine for my purposes, whipping up a favicon or making a bit of random developer art as filler until an actual artist can do the job.

Oh, yes, gimp, the software that is still going "we'll have non-destructive editing.. maybe.. soon.. probably" when its first elements were introduced in Photoshop in the mid 90s. The. Mid. 90s.

It's such a productivity boost that it would be a lack of self respect to one's own time to use a tool that doesn't have it.

You really gimped your argument by including it; otherwise I'd agree it can be done.

Krita would have been a much better example I think. They've had some reasonably successful crowdfunding campaigns and ongoing monthly income, with focused visions of the product they create, and they've proven capable of attracting actual users who are in it for the art instead of just your "FOSS"-radical Stallman types.

Blender represents an outlier in the OSS landscape, largely due to its unique product vision. Its development was driven by practical use in creating open movies, which provided a built-in customer base. As a niche 3D software, it was subject to less conventional expectations in its presentation, allowing it to stand out. Despite this, Blender’s UI/UX design has faced criticism, suggesting that if it were applied in other domains, the reception might be even less favorable.

Yeah I think that's exactly the point. Libre office would need a Blender like visionary management to flourish.

Their point was that it's impossible for OSS to have visionary management, the projects I listed prove that's a false claim.

Right gimp mightn't be as good as photoshop, but it's always satisfied my needs, granted my needs are pretty limited when it comes to photo editing/art.

I'm not claiming OSS projects are inherently better or even equal to their commercial closed source alternatives. I just think the claim that an OSS project haven't have vision is rubbish.

> I hope that they understand it shouldn't be about cost, it should be about being sovereign

Makes sense in principle, but practically speaking Germany would seem to have higher priority threats to address than software from the United States?

Mhm. Spending less on licenses would free up money for other things.

Countries are big. They can do more than one thing at a time.

The Document Foundation is a German organization.